Hungarian CEOs concerned about labor shortage

The availability of key skills is a challenge according to most of the CEOs in Hungary, consulting company PwC said yesterday, based on a survey it conducted in Q4 2017.

Among challenges, changing workforce demographics was mentioned by 76% and increasing employee benefits by 73% of the 165 CEOs interviewed. "The percentage of CEOs saying they would like to increase their staff numbers has been over 50% for years now," said Anita Mekler, tax partner at PwC Hungary, cited by national news agency MTI.

Around 89% of CEOs are confident that their companyʼs revenue will grow in the next 12 months, 55% predicted the Hungarian economy will keep growing and 47% said that the global economy would expand. The outlook for CEOsʼ own companies and Hungary has not changed, while their opinion of the global economy improved from a year ago.

Nearly half of Hungarian CEOs picked Germany as their most important foreign market, followed by Romania, the United States and Slovakia. "For Hungarian companies, Germany has traditionally been the most important target for market growth. Romania now ranks as the second most important country with regard to Hungarian companiesʼ local growth prospects. In addition to geographical proximity, the key drivers here are easier networking among the Hungarian minority, and a market twice the size of the Hungarian market," said economist László Urbán.

During a separate public event on Thursday, the German-Hungarian Chamber of Commerce (DUIHK) chairman Dale A. Martin said the chamberʼs survey shows the shortage of laborers trained in vocations in Hungary has not eased since last year. National Economy Minister Mihály Varga said the government aims to increase the number of apprenticeship positions at businesses by 40% by 2022.

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